[UPDATE: Fallen Officer identified as Benjamin Marconi]
An officer was shot and killed just outside the San Antonio Police Department’s headquarters around noon on Sunday. Chief William McManus said the officer had been “targeted.”
Detectives have not identified a motive and are working to identify the shooter, who drove away in a black Toyota or Nissan, McManus said at a briefing Sunday afternoon.
“This is everyone’s worst nightmare – everyone’s worst nightmare,” McManus said. “We never want to see anything like this happen.”
McManus said that the officer, a 20-year veteran of the force, was issuing a ticket outside the station and was inside his patrol car when the shooter pulled up behind him in his vehicle. The shooter got out and fired once through the window of the patrol car, McManus said, striking the officer in the head.
The shooter then reached inside the car and shot the officer a second time before returning to his vehicle and driving away through the station’s parking lot, according to McManus.
The officer, who was pronounced dead at about 12:30 p.m. at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, has not been identified.
This is 20-yr SAPD veteran Benjamin Marconi. He was shot while writing a ticket in front of HQ. He was 50 years years old pic.twitter.com/BIJJ6lMui0
— Zack Hedrick (@zhedricknews) November 20, 2016
McManus described the shooter as a black man between 5-foot-7 and 6 feet in height, clean shaven and wearing a gray shirt and black pants. Police do not have a photograph of him, the chief said.
“There are a couple of different angles that we’re looking at,” he said. “As we sort through them, we’ll be able to have a better idea of why this might have happened.”
“I want to extend my deepest condolences to the family of the officer killed,” San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor said in a statement. “This type of crime cannot and will not be tolerated.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Max Ehrenfreund
